A foundation created by Silicon Valley tech elite on Wednesday awarded $3 million each to 11 health researchers studying stem cells, genetics, cancer and other diseases. The cash awards are more than double the size of the Nobel Prize. The awards were handed out at the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and wife Anne Wojcicki; Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan; and Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner.

Peter Da Vanzo cites Mark Jeffrey, who delivered the keynote of the MediaPost December Search Insider Summit, when he talks about the post Google Panda data-driven marketing era. Da Vanzo tells us the next generation of search marketing will tightly integrate with traditional marketing metrics such as customer retention, churn, profitability, and customer lifetime value. "If each visitor is going to be more expensive to acquire, then we need to make sure those visitors are worthwhile, and the more we engage visitors post-click, the more relevant our sites will appear to Google," he writes, telling us how in a detailed post. …

Paul Rogers gives us tips on five attribution black holes. He starts with online marketing activity supporting offline sales, and moves through paid search and display advertising not getting attribution from phone sales, and on to subscription-based or ongoing revenue not reflective of bottom line figures. He explains each of the topics, providing tips on better managing attribution strategies.

Sean Quadlin provides a quick example of search funnels before explaining the new feature that Google launched last week. Google now includes search funnel information in AdWords reporting alongside the data. When conversion tracking remains active in the account, marketers can add the feature to gain more insight into how ads perform. He provides details on features like assist impressions, clicks and click-assisted conversion values to help marketers understand when and how to use the feature. Read the article here.

Maile Ohye from the Google webmaster support team explains how to use the Search Queries feature in Webmaster Tools in a video posted on YouTube. The video takes us through impression data, average position, clicks and click-through rates. Aside from providing the basic definitions, she explains how to set a date range, download information, and qualified traffic, and shows how Google calculates average position.

The loss of traffic data from Google continues to make content analysis more difficult, but Bonnie Steanick explains a "simple top-down method" for marketers starting out with using content analysis via Google Analytics. She delves into site, traffic and keyword level strategies. When it comes to keywords, she writes, avoid thinking in terms of single pages or keywords unless something "earth shattering" arises. Read the article here.

Andrew Lolk takes us through the process of optimizing campaigns after the initial 14 days. The post -- the last in a three-part series -- tells us this is the most important time to pay close attention to the ads and keywords driving conversions. For example, start reviewing bids for exceeding budgets. Marketers who see keywords with low click-through rates between 0.5% to 1% in the top 5 ad positions should consider pausing them. Read the article here.

The hreflang attribute helps search engines serve content in the correct language for the region. Dave Sottimano and Tom Anthony provide insight on how to take the authority already built into one language site and capitalize it in another. The two explain how this tag interacts strangely with rel=canonical tags, and provide insight on how to work around the possible bugs. Read the article here.

Alibaba Group's Alibaba Cloud Computing, AliCloud, introduced the search engine, s.aliyun.com on Monday into China's online market. The engine offers Web, news, photo, and map search functions. Chinese digital company AutoNavi supports the map features. The Alibaba group tapped a Web architecture product in beta that allows site developers to conduct quick in-site searches for users.

For those wondering what happened to Digg and Revision3 founder Kevin Rose, he ended up at Google Ventures filming interviews that profile entrepreneurs. One of the more recent highlights an interview with Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and Paypal. This week, Rose will talk with Startup Lab for a live Foundation filming with NationBuilder founder Jim Gilliam. Read the article here.